Local Governments
There literally tens of thousands of local governments across the United States. The 2002 Census of Government puts the figure at 87,000. The term "local government" means a variety of things. It refers to city and county governments, and the governments that make decisions for various entities such as school and hospital districts, municipal utility districts and tax incremental reinvestment zones. No matter which type, each provides specific services that are far more closely connected to the general population than either the state or national governments. Study Guide Questions.
- What is the difference between general purpose and single purpose local governments?
- What are the basic functions of cities? What are the basic functions of counties?
- What are the differences between home rule and general law cities?
- What is Dillon's Rule? What controversies exist regarding it?
- What are the key features of the three types of city governments?
- What are the key features of city and county elections?
- What is the basic structure of county government?
- What are the principle revenue sources for local governments?
- What types of services are provided by single purpose governments? Quiz Questions for Online Students
Fall 2009
No question are due this week. Take a break. The Role of Local Governments in the U.S. Federal System.
Local governments are peculiar institutions. On one hand they have the most direct impact on the lives of citizens, and tend to also be the level of government people are most likely to trust since they feel closest to it, but they are also far less interesting to the general population than state government, and certainly national government. Turnout in local elections is abysmally low. City council and bond elections can often draw less than 10% of the population, and people know far less about local issues than they do about state and national issues. Again, this is a peculiar fact given that most of what local governments do -- trash collection, street repair, drainage, police and fire protection, sewage and waste collection and water supply among many other things -- are more important to our daily lives than the policies that fall under the jurisdiction of the state or national governments.
In a sense however, low level of interest reflect the fact that these functions tend not to be controversial in the ideological or partican sense that state and national often are. Most local elections tend to be non-partisan.
Two Types of Local Government.
Local governments come in two general types. General purpose local governments are those that provide general services for cities, counties and towns. These governments are headed by a mayor or a city manager and usually include city councils and some type of local court system. Single purpose local governments provide one specific function. Most commonly these are independent school districts, community college districts, navigation or drainage districts, municipal utility districts and tax incremental reinvestment zones.
General Purpose Local Governments:Cities.
The most obvious example of a local government is a city, also called a municipal government. Though low on the totem pole, cities are the oldest governing entity in the United States. Jamestown was the first working settlement in the British colonies. Others followed, some successful, some not. The more influential cities in the colonial period, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, became influential because they became hubs of commercial activity. This calls to mind an essential fact about cities, one that makes them fundamentally different than states and nations. They are primarily economic units. While the colonies were granted charters first, and settled later, cities tend to begin as small communities, a settlement, centered around some economic activity and once they attain a particular size, they can apply for a charter of incorporation.
Home Rule v. General Law Cities.
Once granted a charter, a city has the ability to pass its own laws. Depending on the size of the city, it may have general law authority or hoem rule authority. The difference is significant. From the Texas Municipal League:
There are two categories of cities in Texas: home rule and general law. General law cities are smaller cities whose powers are limited; they operate according to specific state statutes that define their powers and duties. They are restricted to doing what the state directs or permits them to do. If a general law city has not been granted the express or implied power by the state to initiate a particular action, none may be taken. Home rule cities are cities with populations of more than 5,000 in which citizens have adopted home rule charters. A charter is a document that establishes the city’s governmental structure and provides for the distribution of powers and duties among the various branches of government. In order to be implemented, the charter must be approved by the people at an election. Likewise, changes in the charter must be approved by a vote of the people. The legal position of home rule cities is the reverse of general law cities. Rather than looking to state law to determine what they may do, as general law cities must, home rule cities look to the state constitution and state statutes to determine what they may not do. Thus, if a proposed home rule city action has not been prohibited or pre-empted by the state, the city generally can proceed.
Home Rule cities allow citizens greater opportuities to change their charter.This provides flexibility in the design of the local government. They also allow citizens more direct control of the legislative process through the power of initiative, recall, and referendum.
As with states, a central legal dispute about cities concerns the nature of its powers. Are they granted by a higher level of government, in this case the states, or are they inherent in the city and the right of its citizens to self determination? The established rule, Dillon's Rule, holds that the former is true. The powers and rights of municipal corporations are granted from state legislatures and can be revoked by them as well. An alternative view, the Cooley Doctrine, holds that the rights of cities are absolute and cannot be taken away by state legislatures. Over time the Supreme Court has adopted the former, which suggests that the very existence of cities is subject to the whims of the state legislature. Given the economic and political strength of many cities, this may be less a practical than a legal reality.
As stated above, cities deliver general purpose services to the people that live within its border. Though some services are common to all cities, what is provided and how is generally determined by the people of the city either directly through elections or indirectly through their elected officials. In the greater Houston area, proposals for new items like light rail and the construction of sports stadiums can prove highly controversial. Some cities in the local are are more willing to spend funds on local development than others. The same holds true for spending on educational facilities.
Some services are provided in cooperation with either the state or national government. Many New Deal and Great Society programs (particularly the latter) which were intended to benefit the urban poor were implemented through grant in aid programs which encouraged certain services -- housing for example -- to be encouraged by matching grants. If the city began a project, the national government would add funding to the project based on how much the city was spending.
Local policies fall into the following categories:
- drainage
- sewage collection and treatment
- electricity
- gas
- water
- basic road construction and maintenance
- trash collection
- building inspection
- law enforcement
- animal control
- public transportation
- parks and recreation
A recurrent controversy in city government concerns equity in the provision of services. Poorer communities often complain that services they do not get their fair share of public services.
Cities have unique histories, and are largely autonomous. This means that they have evolved in different ways in response to different circumstances. The precise structure of city governments vary tremendously, but they fall into three broad categories: mayor-council, council-manager, city commision.
A Mayor - Council government is composed of a separately elected legislature -- the city council -- and executive -- the mayor. They tend to fall into two tyoe, one with a strong mayor, the other with a weak mayor. In the former the mayor has significant powers apart from the city council. The mayor can appoint and remove department heads, prepare the budget and veto council actions. Usually the strong mayor is a full time office holder with sufficient resources to have a full staff that allows for effective management of the city. Large cities tend to have this form of government, including Houston. In a weak mayor-council system, the mayor is elected along with other officials an department heads. Powers over the city council are minimal, vetoes can be overiden and appointments and removals of department heads are checked by the council.
In a council - manager government a mayor and city council are elected, but a city manager is also hired to carry out the day to day responsibilities of running the city. The mayor is little more than the presiding officer of the city council and together with the city council heps establish policy for the city. The manager is responsible for carrying out that policy.
The commission form was developed in Galveston after the 1900 storm as a way to expedite governmental response to the challenge of rebuilding the city. Rather than have a single mayor elected by the population, the heads of each department is elected separately and a commission os formed to allow for coordination between the different departments.
As with the national and state governments, city official are elected to office, but local elections tend to be non-partisan. Those attentive to local politics will know which party candidates affiliate with, but the ballot does not list party affiliation. This has advantages and disadvantages. It can remove the stigma that may fall on a candidate as a result of party affiliation and persuade people to consider them in terms of their individual merit and it can lead people to focus on municipal problems independent of any state or national issue that may simply serve as distractions. Local problems may be best served by not tying them into party politics. On the other hand, parties tend to serve as the principle agents of voter turnout. Turnout in city elections tend to be very low, often in the single digits. This may be due to the fact that parties have no reason to organize get out the vote drives. City elections often fall on odd number years, which means that there are no coattail effects for local candidates. This has disproportionate effects on minority candidates. A second problem is that the lack of party divisions means that other dividions, notably racial, are more likely to divide the electorate.
Local governments, and their method of representation, were targets of the Votign Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed any election which disadvantaged minority communities. Voting for city council representatives in at-large districts did so, since minority candidates were unlikely to win any positions. Cities in Texas were mandated to include council members who represented single members districts which were more likely to contain with it a majority of a group that was a minority city wide. As a consequence the city councils of Texas cities, notably Houston, are quite diverse.
City revenues are primarily drawn from property and sales taxes. Increasingly fees have been used to draw revenue from certain specific services such as trash collection and water suply. Other projects, notably capital improvement projects such as the construction of new city buildings, are funded by the sale of municipal bonds.
General Purpose Local Governments: Counties.
As with cities, counties are general purpose governments that are spread throughout the country. There are slightly over 3000 counties in the United States, 254 in Texas. But counties serve as administrative units of states, meaning that they exist because state governments need them to deliver certain services to residents that live in the county, but not in any city, or implement state laws that are not also implemented by cities. In general, statewide concerns are administered locally through county government. While cities exist because a particular settlement was able to attract enough residents to gain home rule authority -- which could simply be a matter of fortune -- counties exist because of a legislative act. Generally they serve rural and suburban residents.
Counties have authority over a small handful of services and implement states laws that affect individuals. These include:
- issuing state automobile licenses, among other licenses issued by the state
- voter registration
- conduction of elections
- property tax assessment and collection
- maintaining vital records: birth and death certificates
- conducting health and welfare programs
Depending on the county, and the voting decisions of county residents, other functions may be run by counties as well. These includes ports, airports, libraries, hospitals, museums etc. The choice is up to the citizens.
The structure of county government is established in the Texas Constitution. Each is headed by a commissioners court, which is the major policymaking body for the county. It is headed by a county judge, who is elected county wide, and four elected commissioners who are elected to represent one of four districts in the county. Other elected officials in the county include district attorneys, county sheriffs and constables, county clerks, district clerks, county tax assessors - collectors, a county treasurer, in addition to judicial positions.
The commisioners court has authority over the administrative functions listed above. The most important decision it makes is the adoption of the county budget and the setting of the tax rates that cover the expensidures associated with the budget.
As opposed to city elections, county elections are partisan. All offices serve for four year terms.
Single Purpose Local Governments.
A large number of local governmental units serve single purposes. These are also called special districts. Most are involved with education, but many other functions are also served by these entities. They are usually created by acts of the Texas Legislature, though local ordinances also lead to their creation.
Independent School Districts.
The large number of districts are dedicated to K-12 education. These are headed by elected, non-salaried, boards of trustees that are responsible for making the major educational and administrative decisions for the district including the hiring of the district's superintendent. As with other local elections, these are usually low turnout elections. They are also non-partisan.
Tension exists in Texas over the degree to which policy decisions should be made by the state, in the Texas Education Agency, or the State Board of Education, or by the local board. Often these conflicts are over the content of the curriculum, issues such as prayer in the schools, sex education, racial discrimination or the size of the school budget.
An increasingly problematic area is student performance, especially the increased attention given to this by state and federal authorities. Requirements that students perform at certain levels in standardized tests has led to complaints that local autonomy is being compromise and that these requirements are posing burdens on local communities that are not being paid for.
Other Levels:
- Community College Districts.
- Port Authority
- Drainage Districts.
- Municipal Utility Districts
- Tax Reinvestment Incremental Zones.
Metropolitan Areas and Councils of Government.
Given the large number of governments that exist on the local level, the management of local concerns is obviously complex. This is especially true when these levels of governments overlap in a metropolitan area with a large population like Houston and the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The services that are provided by local government, such as transportation, sewage, etc . . . cross over several boundaries. Some coordination is necessary in order to ensure that the services are actually working effectively.
Some urbans areas around the country have actually created metropolital governments that encompass the various sub-governmental agencies in the region. In Texas, councils of governments have been established to facilitate the coordination of local governments. 24 such councils exist, the Greater Houston area is included in the 16th region, the Houston Galveston Area Council, otherwise known as H-GAC.
There literally tens of thousands of local governments across the United States. The 2002 Census of Government puts the figure at 87,000. The term "local government" means a variety of things. It refers to city and county governments, and the governments that make decisions for various entities such as school and hospital districts, municipal utility districts and tax incremental reinvestment zones. No matter which type, each provides specific services that are far more closely connected to the general population than either the state or national governments.
Study Guide Questions.
- What is the difference between general purpose and single purpose local governments?
- What are the basic functions of cities? What are the basic functions of counties?
- What are the differences between home rule and general law cities?
- What is Dillon's Rule? What controversies exist regarding it?
- What are the key features of the three types of city governments?
- What are the key features of city and county elections?
- What is the basic structure of county government?
- What are the principle revenue sources for local governments?
- What types of services are provided by single purpose governments?
Quiz Questions for Online Students
Fall 2009
No question are due this week. Take a break.
The Role of Local Governments in the U.S. Federal System.
Local governments are peculiar institutions. On one hand they have the most direct impact on the lives of citizens, and tend to also be the level of government people are most likely to trust since they feel closest to it, but they are also far less interesting to the general population than state government, and certainly national government. Turnout in local elections is abysmally low. City council and bond elections can often draw less than 10% of the population, and people know far less about local issues than they do about state and national issues. Again, this is a peculiar fact given that most of what local governments do -- trash collection, street repair, drainage, police and fire protection, sewage and waste collection and water supply among many other things -- are more important to our daily lives than the policies that fall under the jurisdiction of the state or national governments.
In a sense however, low level of interest reflect the fact that these functions tend not to be controversial in the ideological or partican sense that state and national often are. Most local elections tend to be non-partisan.
Two Types of Local Government.
Local governments come in two general types. General purpose local governments are those that provide general services for cities, counties and towns. These governments are headed by a mayor or a city manager and usually include city councils and some type of local court system. Single purpose local governments provide one specific function. Most commonly these are independent school districts, community college districts, navigation or drainage districts, municipal utility districts and tax incremental reinvestment zones.
General Purpose Local Governments: Cities.
The most obvious example of a local government is a city, also called a municipal government. Though low on the totem pole, cities are the oldest governing entity in the United States. Jamestown was the first working settlement in the British colonies. Others followed, some successful, some not. The more influential cities in the colonial period, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, became influential because they became hubs of commercial activity. This calls to mind an essential fact about cities, one that makes them fundamentally different than states and nations. They are primarily economic units. While the colonies were granted charters first, and settled later, cities tend to begin as small communities, a settlement, centered around some economic activity and once they attain a particular size, they can apply for a charter of incorporation.
Home Rule v. General Law Cities.
Once granted a charter, a city has the ability to pass its own laws. Depending on the size of the city, it may have general law authority or hoem rule authority. The difference is significant. From the Texas Municipal League:
There are two categories of cities in Texas: home rule and general law. General law cities are smaller cities whose powers are limited; they operate according to specific state statutes that define their powers and duties. They are restricted to doing what the state directs or permits them to do. If a general law city has not been granted the express or implied power by the state to initiate a particular action, none may be taken. Home rule cities are cities with populations of more than 5,000 in which citizens have adopted home rule charters. A charter is a document that establishes the city’s governmental structure and provides for the distribution of powers and duties among the various branches of government. In order to be implemented, the charter must be approved by the people at an election. Likewise, changes in the charter must be approved by a vote of the people. The legal position of home rule cities is the reverse of general law cities. Rather than looking to state law to determine what they may do, as general law cities must, home rule cities look to the state constitution and state statutes to determine what they may not do. Thus, if a proposed home rule city action has not been prohibited or pre-empted by the state, the city generally can proceed.
Home Rule cities allow citizens greater opportuities to change their charter.This provides flexibility in the design of the local government. They also allow citizens more direct control of the legislative process through the power of initiative, recall, and referendum.
- National League of Cities: Home Rule.
- Handbook of Texas Online: Home Rule Charters.
- Texas Municipal League: Local Government in Texas.
Dillon's Rule v. the Cooley Doctrine.
As with states, a central legal dispute about cities concerns the nature of its powers. Are they granted by a higher level of government, in this case the states, or are they inherent in the city and the right of its citizens to self determination? The established rule, Dillon's Rule, holds that the former is true. The powers and rights of municipal corporations are granted from state legislatures and can be revoked by them as well. An alternative view, the Cooley Doctrine, holds that the rights of cities are absolute and cannot be taken away by state legislatures. Over time the Supreme Court has adopted the former, which suggests that the very existence of cities is subject to the whims of the state legislature. Given the economic and political strength of many cities, this may be less a practical than a legal reality.
- Wikipedia: Dillon's Rule.
- Why Home Rule?.
- Dillon's Rule or Not?
- The Cooley Doctrine.
Services.
As stated above, cities deliver general purpose services to the people that live within its border. Though some services are common to all cities, what is provided and how is generally determined by the people of the city either directly through elections or indirectly through their elected officials. In the greater Houston area, proposals for new items like light rail and the construction of sports stadiums can prove highly controversial. Some cities in the local are are more willing to spend funds on local development than others. The same holds true for spending on educational facilities.
Some services are provided in cooperation with either the state or national government. Many New Deal and Great Society programs (particularly the latter) which were intended to benefit the urban poor were implemented through grant in aid programs which encouraged certain services -- housing for example -- to be encouraged by matching grants. If the city began a project, the national government would add funding to the project based on how much the city was spending.
Local policies fall into the following categories:
- drainage
- sewage collection and treatment
- electricity
- gas
- water
- basic road construction and maintenance
- trash collection
- building inspection
- law enforcement
- animal control
- public transportation
- parks and recreation
A recurrent controversy in city government concerns equity in the provision of services. Poorer communities often complain that services they do not get their fair share of public services.
- Wikipedia: Municipal Services.
The Structure of City Government.
Cities have unique histories, and are largely autonomous. This means that they have evolved in different ways in response to different circumstances. The precise structure of city governments vary tremendously, but they fall into three broad categories: mayor-council, council-manager, city commision.
A Mayor - Council government is composed of a separately elected legislature -- the city council -- and executive -- the mayor. They tend to fall into two tyoe, one with a strong mayor, the other with a weak mayor. In the former the mayor has significant powers apart from the city council. The mayor can appoint and remove department heads, prepare the budget and veto council actions. Usually the strong mayor is a full time office holder with sufficient resources to have a full staff that allows for effective management of the city. Large cities tend to have this form of government, including Houston. In a weak mayor-council system, the mayor is elected along with other officials an department heads. Powers over the city council are minimal, vetoes can be overiden and appointments and removals of department heads are checked by the council.
- Wikipedia: Mayor Council government.
In a council - manager government a mayor and city council are elected, but a city manager is also hired to carry out the day to day responsibilities of running the city. The mayor is little more than the presiding officer of the city council and together with the city council heps establish policy for the city. The manager is responsible for carrying out that policy.
- Wikipedia: Council Manager government.
The commission form was developed in Galveston after the 1900 storm as a way to expedite governmental response to the challenge of rebuilding the city. Rather than have a single mayor elected by the population, the heads of each department is elected separately and a commission os formed to allow for coordination between the different departments.
- Wikipedia: City Commission.
City Elections.
As with the national and state governments, city official are elected to office, but local elections tend to be non-partisan. Those attentive to local politics will know which party candidates affiliate with, but the ballot does not list party affiliation. This has advantages and disadvantages. It can remove the stigma that may fall on a candidate as a result of party affiliation and persuade people to consider them in terms of their individual merit and it can lead people to focus on municipal problems independent of any state or national issue that may simply serve as distractions. Local problems may be best served by not tying them into party politics. On the other hand, parties tend to serve as the principle agents of voter turnout. Turnout in city elections tend to be very low, often in the single digits. This may be due to the fact that parties have no reason to organize get out the vote drives. City elections often fall on odd number years, which means that there are no coattail effects for local candidates. This has disproportionate effects on minority candidates. A second problem is that the lack of party divisions means that other dividions, notably racial, are more likely to divide the electorate.
Local governments, and their method of representation, were targets of the Votign Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed any election which disadvantaged minority communities. Voting for city council representatives in at-large districts did so, since minority candidates were unlikely to win any positions. Cities in Texas were mandated to include council members who represented single members districts which were more likely to contain with it a majority of a group that was a minority city wide. As a consequence the city councils of Texas cities, notably Houston, are quite diverse.
- National League of Cities: Cities 101.
Revenue Collection.
City revenues are primarily drawn from property and sales taxes. Increasingly fees have been used to draw revenue from certain specific services such as trash collection and water suply. Other projects, notably capital improvement projects such as the construction of new city buildings, are funded by the sale of municipal bonds.
General Purpose Local Governments: Counties.
As with cities, counties are general purpose governments that are spread throughout the country. There are slightly over 3000 counties in the United States, 254 in Texas. But counties serve as administrative units of states, meaning that they exist because state governments need them to deliver certain services to residents that live in the county, but not in any city, or implement state laws that are not also implemented by cities. In general, statewide concerns are administered locally through county government. While cities exist because a particular settlement was able to attract enough residents to gain home rule authority -- which could simply be a matter of fortune -- counties exist because of a legislative act. Generally they serve rural and suburban residents.
Counties have authority over a small handful of services and implement states laws that affect individuals. These include:
- issuing state automobile licenses, among other licenses issued by the state
- voter registration
- conduction of elections
- property tax assessment and collection
- maintaining vital records: birth and death certificates
- conducting health and welfare programs
Depending on the county, and the voting decisions of county residents, other functions may be run by counties as well. These includes ports, airports, libraries, hospitals, museums etc. The choice is up to the citizens.
- WIkipedia: List of Texas Counties.
- Website: Brazoria County.
- Wikipedia: Brazoria County.
- Website: Harris County.
- Wikipedia: Harris County.
Structure.
The structure of county government is established in the Texas Constitution. Each is headed by a commissioners court, which is the major policymaking body for the county. It is headed by a county judge, who is elected county wide, and four elected commissioners who are elected to represent one of four districts in the county. Other elected officials in the county include district attorneys, county sheriffs and constables, county clerks, district clerks, county tax assessors - collectors, a county treasurer, in addition to judicial positions.
The commisioners court has authority over the administrative functions listed above. The most important decision it makes is the adoption of the county budget and the setting of the tax rates that cover the expensidures associated with the budget.
As opposed to city elections, county elections are partisan. All offices serve for four year terms.
Single Purpose Local Governments.
A large number of local governmental units serve single purposes. These are also called special districts. Most are involved with education, but many other functions are also served by these entities. They are usually created by acts of the Texas Legislature, though local ordinances also lead to their creation.
Independent School Districts.
The large number of districts are dedicated to K-12 education. These are headed by elected, non-salaried, boards of trustees that are responsible for making the major educational and administrative decisions for the district including the hiring of the district's superintendent. As with other local elections, these are usually low turnout elections. They are also non-partisan.
Tension exists in Texas over the degree to which policy decisions should be made by the state, in the Texas Education Agency, or the State Board of Education, or by the local board. Often these conflicts are over the content of the curriculum, issues such as prayer in the schools, sex education, racial discrimination or the size of the school budget.
An increasingly problematic area is student performance, especially the increased attention given to this by state and federal authorities. Requirements that students perform at certain levels in standardized tests has led to complaints that local autonomy is being compromise and that these requirements are posing burdens on local communities that are not being paid for.
Other Levels:
- Community College Districts.
- Port Authority
- Drainage Districts.
- Municipal Utility Districts
- Tax Reinvestment Incremental Zones.
Metropolitan Areas and Councils of Government.
Given the large number of governments that exist on the local level, the management of local concerns is obviously complex. This is especially true when these levels of governments overlap in a metropolitan area with a large population like Houston and the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The services that are provided by local government, such as transportation, sewage, etc . . . cross over several boundaries. Some coordination is necessary in order to ensure that the services are actually working effectively.
Some urbans areas around the country have actually created metropolital governments that encompass the various sub-governmental agencies in the region. In Texas, councils of governments have been established to facilitate the coordination of local governments. 24 such councils exist, the Greater Houston area is included in the 16th region, the Houston Galveston Area Council, otherwise known as H-GAC.
- Wikipedia: The Greater Houston Area.
- Website: Houston-Galveston Area Council.
- 2002 Census of Governments.
- Wikipedia: Greater Houston.
- Houston - Galveston Area Council.
- Texas Municipal League.
- National League of Cities.
- Wikipedia: Local Government in the United States.
- Wikipedia: Houston.